Mythologies of Peace

Skip this post if you want, but I feel compelled to share a strange dream I had overnight, prompted by a discussion with my partner who's reading one of the Joseph Campbell books. He noted before bed that Campbell writes that while the mythologies of war have stood the test of time, mythologies of peace are less numerous and have not become embedded (ah, that word).

In the dream, I'm coming back from a business trip, flying into Danbury (CT) airport - in reality a small dinky private airfield but in my dream, an expansive commercial affair but lacking any real security. Something happens so my transportation isn't available, and I'm hit with either paying $250 for the night to stay in the Danbury Hilton (a real place but certainly not as in the dream) or pay hundreds to have a taxi take me home.

Unhappy, I check into the hotel, which is very much like Vegas. Slot machines, scantily clad, costumed women, amusements and arcades all about. Everyone is being encouraged to drink, to gamble, to distract themselves. You seem to have to walk a mile or more to get to the bank of elevators.

I stop, tired, halfway to the elevators, holding my suitcase, and notice this extremely tall, bearded man in a light summer suit, come through the gold and glass doors into the lobby and seemingly glide across the lobby toward the elevators. He draws my attention because it's surreal how he glides. Just as he's about to pass me, he stops and turns, and without fully looking at me (although I'm the only one around), he says, "The mythologies of peace have never been clearly defined."

Then, without another word, he resumes his glide to the elevators and then disappears into a waiting car.

Only after I awake do I realize that the man is bin Laden while the lobby floor manager, operating in a booth high above the lobby, looks surprisingly like our president, overseeing the distractions of the people mulling about beneath him.